Five years ago, we published a study with disturbing implications — literally millions of students may have been labeled as “disabled” and placed into special education when they didn’t really have a disability. Since then, we’ve been struggling to get past the many myths and misconceptions surrounding special education, trying to get people to see the problem.

Now there’s finally been a change, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, federal special education authorities have at last acknowledged the problem and adopted a policy designed to address it. The bad news is, the policy is no good.

That’s the way it usually goes in education reform — two steps forward, one step back. And the obstacles to reform in special education are unusually large, so the steps are baby steps.

But you know what they say: the first step is admitting you have a problem. And we’re glad to see that step has been taken.

Here’s the backstory: Special education enrollments grew dramatically after the federal special education law went into effect in 1976. Then, 8% of all public school students were classified as having a disability. By 1990 it was just under 11%. The growth accelerated throughout the 1990s, and by 2000 it was over 13%. The growth seems to have tapered off in the early 2000s, but the over 50% increase in the percentage of students called “disabled” remains.

The 1976 law was a crucial step forward. Before then, public schools typically did not provide appropriate services to disabled students. These students were often warehoused without receiving an education, or even turned away at the schoolhouse door. But the growth of special education enrollments since 1976 remains a troubling issue.

The growth has taken place almost entirely in the category of “specific learning disabilities,” popularly known simply as “learning disabilities” or “LD.” Other categories of disability have variously gone up and down, cancelling each other out almost perfectly. But learning disabilities have exploded.

What explains this phenomenon? As we have explained here, here, here, and elsewhere, a real increase in learning disabilities is not consistent with the evidence. For example, any environmental factor that could drive up learning disabilities (such as an increase in survival rates for preemies) would also drive up mental retardation, but that category has actually shrunk by a large margin. Society is getting healthier, not sicker.

Gaming the system to avoid accountability testing also doesn’t seem to be the culprit. The studies that have looked at this question have failed to find any relationship between special education growth and the presence or absence of accountability testing.

Our study identifies what we believe is the key. Most states provide funds for special education based on the number of students in special education programs. That is, they provide schools with a financial incentive to label more students as disabled. Several of the state special education officials we spoke to while gathering data for our study actually referred to this as “the bounty system,” because schools get a bounty for each diagnosis.

We compared the growth of special education in states with bounty funding to the growth in states that have reformed their funding systems to eliminate the bounty. We found that almost two-thirds of the special education enrollment growth was associated with the presence of financial incentives.

It’s important to note that the procedure for diagnosing learning disabilities is much more subjective and open to judgment and interpretation than the procedure for diagnosing most other disabilities. Don’t get us wrong – learning disabilities are real, and many students legitimately have them. But under current law, any student who shows signs that he is capable of performing better in the classroom than he actually does can be labeled as learning disabled. And naturally, students can be performing behind their potential if they’ve had an inadequate education, or for other reasons. Technically they’re not supposed to be diagnosed if their underperformance can be attributed to poor teaching or other non-disability factors, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

So if students are being classified as disabled for reasons other than their actually having a disability, learning disabilities is the category where you’d expect it to happen. And that’s the category that’s exploding.

A lot of people really, really don’t want to hear this. But the data are what they are.

We’re not saying that anyone is cynically gaming the system just out of greed for a bigger budget. Of course it’s possible that’s going on in some places, but we think it’s much more likely that schools are just trying to provide as much help as possible. If you can expand your educational programs for students who are falling behind in class by putting a “disabled” label on them, that’s probably motivated by good intentions.

Alas, we know where the road paved by good intentions leads. Labeling kids as disabled when they’re not does them more harm then good. It means they’ll be getting services that aren’t appropriate to their needs, and the system will have lowered expectations for their potential. Plus, once that “disabled” label goes on, it almost never comes off.

Fortunately, there has now been a partial acknowledgement of the problem. A new program called “response to intervention” is designed to help ensure that students aren’t classified as learning disabled simply for lack of good teaching in the early grades. It allows states to divert up to 15% of their special education funding to early intervention programs.

We call this a “partial” acknowledgement of the problem because it only acknowledges that some students are being diagnosed as learning disabled when they’re really “teaching disabled.” It doesn’t reflect an acknowledgement that financial incentives are at work.

And that’s the problem with the policy. It assumes that the only problem here is a misdirection of resources; that schools would be providing better teaching if only they could free up the funds.

But school spending has been growing nonstop for decades. It has roughly doubled since 1976; we now spend about $10,000 per student. Lack of money isn’t a problem. And a very large body of empirical research has consistently failed to find any relationship between spending and outcomes.

Here’s another way of making the same point. If we don’t change the incentives that schools work under, why would we expect the new “intervention” teaching to be done any differently than the teaching they’re doing now? And if the teaching they’re doing now isn’t working, why would we expect more of the same to work?

If school behavior is being driven by incentives, that behavior will resist change until we reform the incentives. Obviously more states should reform their funding systems, but given the political obstacles to such reform, we’re not holding our breath. And a federal law mandating reform could violate federalism. On the other hand, auditing of special education placements wouldn’t expand federal authority beyond its current scope and could be effective.

But the best solution is to create a voucher program for disabled students. Five states (Florida, Ohio, Utah, Arizona, and Georgia) have already done so, and the programs are successful. In addition to providing a counterbalance to the “bounty” incentive to diagnose, vouchers improve education for disabled students. Our research has shown that Florida’s program, the first of its kind and the largest, not only provides superior services for the students who use it, it also induces public schools to provide a better education to disabled students who remain.

If even an eighth of all special education students are only there due to funding incentives — and our data suggest that’s a very conservative estimate – that’s about a million children. We need to get beyond baby steps and adopt serious reforms aimed at protecting their interests, as well as improving education for all special education students.

Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Jay Greene is the endowed professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Jay Greene is the endowed professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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A very nice article with plenty of background research. One very large problem you neglect to discuss is parent involvement in the “labeling” process. I’ve been teaching for 15 years, and my experience says that roughly 90 percent of students who are eventually labeled procure this label because parents demand it.

I’ve had students who take all honors classes, and their parents won’t allow the district to remove them from IEPs, because the parents fear the children will lose services, which enhance their chances to score better on tests and to receive better grades.

The best thing the government can do is take parents out of the equation.

Parents, I find, are mostly what’s wrong with education in our country.

The “presence of financial incentives” usually promotes growth in anything. Consider how many more people go to the doctor with minor problems that would resolve itself because they have insurance coverage. Fifty years ago people didn’t run to the doctor every time they sneezed because they didn’t have a cheap copay.

As well in education if the student is classified as “special needs” then the teacher need not feel responsible for the failure of the child to learn the curriculum.

Thanks for your comment. We hear this claim a lot, and there is no doubt that parents do drive diagnoses in some cases. Perhaps there are some local areas where this is an especially common phenomenon. However, the empirical data really don’t allow us to attribute the problem primarily to parents nationwide. Two-thirds of the growth in special education is directly attributable to funding incentives; that leaves only one-third of the growth attributable to all other factors combined. The influence of parents will be some subset of that one-third.

But disempowering parents is no solution in any event. Any institution becomes dysfunctional if it is not accountable to the people it serves, no matter how well intentioned the people in that institution are; that’s why the monopoly is the paradigmatic case of market failure. Schools are no different; give them a monopoly and disempower the people they’re supposed to be serving, and you will get dysfunctional schools.

The NEA would like nothing better than to “take parents out of the equation” in all aspects of public education. After all, who knows better than “educators” how to fein education while indoctrinating American children with Marxist ideals and principles.

I once saw a 60 Minutes story about a disabled child who was flown in an airplane to school. The amount of money spent on a child who might some day be able to tie his shoelaces unaided was amazing and horrifying.

We should fund programs for gifted students. Better yet, we should allow homeschooling and test for results. Better still, we should allow students to opt out of classes based on exam results.

I so envy children who are homeschooled. I had a Marxist Manhattan Mafia bore me to distraction in public school and nuns trying to convert me back to Catholicism in parochial school. I learned most the year I played hookey and studied philosophy in the mornings and went to foreign films in the afternoon.

I wouldn’t even go to college if I had it to do over. I would study Spanish, French, Italian and Portugese (at least 2 years worth of credits right there) , ancient philosophy, American, French and English history, economics, political science et al on my own then take CLEP exams. One woman was able to graduate from a four year university in six months by doing so.

As to who is gifted or retarded or what, in the first grade I stubbornly insisted on pronouncing *I” like “e” which is how it’s pronounced in Spanish. I had been taught to read at home by my grandmother, a language teacher. (that meant I learned using phonics not that brain destroying look-say method that has greatly destroyed our former literacy). I was labeled at the least not too smart. Then, because I so hated public school my parents sent me to parochial school Public and Parochial schools don’t share records. The nuns thought me gifted and eventually skipped me a year ahead.

There are many different kinds of intelligence. I am verbally gifted. But I learned math in school which has left me pretty much innumerate like way too many Americans.

I admire people who are good at fixing things and making things. That’s a different kind of intelligence. My ex-husband wasn’t verbal, but could keep a flow chart the length of a conference table in his head, I can’t think two steps ahead in chess. Different brain wiring.

I found out only a few years ago that I have ADD. Had I known I would have been less of a loner and misfit and had an easier time of it. When I looked into ADD, I was given a list of ADD geniuses which included virtually everyone I’d ever admired.

I have the very real problem of being told by a government agency that I have to get my child diagnosed with ADHD in the next few weeks so he can be drugged and controlled, THEN they will grant and pay me $200 per fortnight in a payment, I wont have to do full time work and if I do not then any family tax benefits that most Australians receive, will be cut off. My child is worth more than $200 per week and I think this is an excuse because their teaching methods are not suitable to all students, the system is flawed.

Jack Rogers, I am a parent with two kids diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. I wouldn’t have had to seek a diagnosis for my children except for all the judgmental idiots in the public school system. Teachers who aren’t trained to handle children’s learning differences and/or aren’t allowed to make any accommodations in their own classroom have no choice but to either try to get kids diagnosed with LD and get them out of their classrooms, or provoke the parents until the parents do something about it like getting a diagnosis themselves or pulling their kid out of public school. I know plenty of parents who’ve had to do one or both of those things just to get their child the education he deserves.

So get down off your high horse Mr. Rogers, and come live in the real world of kids more than one standard deviation from the mean. Walk a mile in my shoes and then tell me to my face that I got my kids diagnosed and started homeschooling them just so they could get advantages they didn’t deserve.

You had me interested until you got to the vouchers. Consider two points.

First, most special education determinations are made at the school level by an IEP team, typically comprising a parent, a regular education teacher, an LEA representative (often a school administrator), and a special education teacher.

Second, especially in the case of possible SLD situations, it is likely that the student in question has been struggling. As you say in your article, the primary motivation to label a child “special education” may very well be to access additional resources to help the child.

So how does the “threat” of a voucher discourage local teams’ identification of students? The school has likely already used some additional resources for the child in question (e.g., tutoring, one-on-one work with a teacher assistant, small-group work with a reading teacher). If that school-based team knew that SLD identification would mean that the student would qualify for a special education voucher—i.e., the student might end up leaving the school to go somewhere else, thus freeing up the additional resources that had previously been employed—how would that serve as a disincentive? Couldn’t the opposite come true—that IEP teams see LSD identification, and the vouchers that come with that identification, as a way to get struggling students out of their individual schools (especially given that struggling students often also translate into lower standardized test scores)?

In addition, would we see new private schools cropping up that focus exclusively on LSD students, setting up a multi-tiered system with special education students being served in separate schools from their non-disabled peers (pretty contrary to the intent of IDEA)?

I found your explication of increases in the special education population quite insightful, but I would appreciate a much more detailed and persuasive explanation of how special education vouchers would represent an effective practice.

My daughter was classified special ed after struggling in elementary school and undergoing extensive evaluations. I found much of the evaluation process subjective with conflicting diagnoses. However, special ed classification has resulted in extra resources and accommodations that have been important in helping her academic progress.

I think part of the problem can be attributed to poor teaching and curriculum. It’s highly unlikely that my daughter would need special ed classification if she received direct instruction in a logical, sequential and comprehensive curriculum. Instead, due to the rise of constructivism in our public schools, the teacher often serves as a facilitator while the students are expected to “discover” their lessons in mixed ability groups. Many lessons are organized thematically (if this is February it must be black history lesson time) and presented in an in interdisciplinary manner. Fifth graders are taught to write essays about the evils of global warming even though the fundamental science that is needed to understand this topic has not been part of the curriculum in grades K-4. In math class, fourth graders pair off to discuss concepts, but practicing math procedures to mastery rarely happens.

I taught for two years. The #1 problem causing crappy students was the parents. Drunken/drug addicted mothers, and missing fathers. Deal with those and you have dealt with the bottom performing 20%. Where I was, rural AK, it would be the bottom 98%.

Parents suck. Then, deal with teachers who are trained to avoid lawsuits at all costs, and get burned out on a system that puts kids last.

Whatever financial incentives there are to label them special needs are far offset by the enormous financial drain special ed imposes on school districts. When you have illiterate fifth graders sharing classes with the very smart, this means that the illiterates have a personal aide who reads and writes everything for him.

Parry, thanks for your thoughtful question. As we mentioned in the column, the empirical studies all show that accountability testing has no effect on special education placement rates. So your hypothesis that local teams will want to get rid of “struggling students” to avoid “lower standardized test scores” doesn’t square with the evidence. (See the Education Myths book, linked above, for a rundown on what the studies on this show.)

You ask whether we might see a proliferation of specialized private schools for SLD with vouchers. Florida’s voucher program for disabled students is by far the oldest and largest such program (there are five nationwide) and we haven’t seen very much of that so far. In practice, almost all the SLD kids are going into regular schools. That tends to support our hypothesis that a lot of these kids were not legitimately SLD.

However, if we did see a burgeoning of SLD schools, that wouldn’t bother me at all. Here I speak only for myself, but I frankly don’t care whether a bunch of legislators in Washington think that my daughter should be educated in this or that type of school. They don’t know my daughter, and they have no idea what her unique needs call for. Maybe a special school is precisely what my daughter needs. Or maybe it would be a bad idea for her, but the right idea for somebody else. Parents are always better placed to make decisions for their children than politicians and bureaucrats. They will always know their children’s needs better, and they will always be more highly motivated to get the best for their children.

Finally, you want to know whether vouchers would be an “effective practice.” As it happens, there is empirical research on this as well. At the end of our column we linked to two studies showing that Florida’s special education vouchers have delivered better services to the students using them and have produced better outcomes for disabled students remaining in public schools.

“You ask whether we might see a proliferation of specialized private schools for SLD with vouchers. Florida’s voucher program for disabled students is by far the oldest and largest such program (there are five nationwide) and we haven’t seen very much of that so far. In practice, almost all the SLD kids are going into regular schools. That tends to support our hypothesis that a lot of these kids were not legitimately SLD.”

Huh? That’s rather a major leap, isn’t it?

Parents may not want to use vouchers to send their kids to private programs for a variety of reasons. Private programs only make sense if your child is severely disabled and has no hope of being mainstreamed. If your child has a speech and language disorder (raising her hand), then you probably want your child to be mainstreamed for part of the day or at least around regular kids during lunch and recess for peer modeling. You want your kid housed in a school that has regular kids.

This article raises many questions…
I don’t believe children are getting labeled for a bounty. I say this because I have had to battle for both of my children to get them the services they need.
I believe the increase could certainly be attributed to (or at least is in correlation with) the number of Autism diagnoses. As more is discovered about this disorder, more diagnoses are made.
Given what I personally went through, it was almost as if the teachers wanted a little mechanical soldier rather than a living breathing child, and the district didn’t want to do the paperwork associated with services, bounty or no.
They sure played dumb with my children (one of whom we battled for nearly 2 years on) to want a bounty, or do they just want the bounty without helping the child in need?

In comparison to my homeschooled son’s education, my daughters’ public and private educations are best described as shallow and incoherent. I teach chemistry and history to other homeschooled students nowadays, and I have had students who were labeled learning disabled in the public schools. They had learned little more than how to be disabled (how to ask for more time, not how to concentrate, for example). In tiny, challenging homeschool classes, their disabilities seem to be the result of their prior schooling. I taught one boy that “studying” means more than just running your eyes once over the words on the page. When he understood that it means “going over it until you could do it in your sleep,” his confidence dramatically improved–as did his performance.

There are numerous problems inherent to special education. I will describe a few of the more obvious difficulties.

1. The majority of school administrators and general education teachers have no training in special education. Particularly at the secondary level, many teachers resent the fact that special education students are placed in their classes. That is because they have not been properly prepared for inclusion of special education students.

2. Most special education teachers are insufficiently trained. They are expected to be “experts” in cognitive, affective, and physical disabilities, as well as child development and instruction. In most cases, a Master’s degree just doesn’t cut it.

3. In New York State, approximately 12% of students are classified for special education, although in urban areas the percentage may be very high, perhaps 20% or more. Most classified kids have mild disabilities, and more than a few are classified simply because they are unmotivated or “slow learners.” Educational classifications are so broad as to be nearly meaningless.

4. Many special education teachers are overwhelmed. That is because they are responsible for a high number of classified students, each one of whom has his/her own Individual Eduction Program (IEP).

Since the IEP determines the skills a classified child needs to master, and since each student has his/her own IEP, it is difficult for teachers to provide coherent, group classroom instruction. “Differentiated instruction” is simply not feasible given individual student needs and the limited preparation time provided to most teachers.

5. Although many children do need the special education services they receive, a significant minority of kids get more than they need. Some get less. Those who get more than they need usually have parents who are insisting upon certain services, thinking “more is better.” That may not be the case.

6. School districts generally strive to develop programs that will help classified kids, but typically have to cater to certain parents who fail to recognize that “free, appropriate, public education (FAPE)” means something less than “the best.” Public schools are bureaucratic institutions that aim for equitable treatment of kids, and should.

Significant funds are expended by districts trying to ward off what are often frivolous lawsuits. Many attorneys initiate impartial hearings against districts only with the intention of settling the matter after collecting some easy money.

7. Some attorneys and “child advocates” really are nobly committed to their work. Some are involved for the money or have an ax to grind. Parents usually have a hard time telling the difference.

8. At base, special education is legally-driven, not educationally-driven. Special education law has been drafted by attorneys, not educators. IEPs are legal documents that often bear little relationship to classroom realities. The law changes constantly, and it is humanly impossible to keep up with it.

9. Many services rendered to classified kids have no empirical basis, but are provided because (a) they have historically been available, and (b) parents want them. And, many services that have only temporary impact are provided for the same reasons: Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), for example.

10. Even “useful” services may be provided long past the time they are effective. For example, some kids receive occupational therapy (OT) or physical therapy (PT) while making negligible progress.

I think we need to take a long, hard look at special education and — as a society — at what comprises a “disability.” We need to develop more (and better) instructional/vocational programs for kids who do not benefit from traditional, academic fare. Since child mental health concerns have reached crisis proportions, we also need to integrate mental health into schools to a far greater degree.

I have posted a link to my own blog. I intended to re-post this statement there.

This is a really interesting article. I just have a few points to add for consideration. Our educational system is an obsolete, non- functional, over-politicized bureaucracy that leaves ALL students behind. The amount of true learning that takes place in schools today is barely existent. Students who excel in the public school system are those who are compliant with good memories, leading them to easily regurgitate info required for mandated testing. Those who do not fit into this category may very well find themselves receiving special education services. The beauty of an IEP is that it treats the student as an INDIVIDUAL. Rules are bent, accommodations are made, new ground is broken in the facilitation of learning. Isn’t this the way learning should be…for the sake of LEARNING. In my dream world, every student would have an IEP. Their strengths and weaknesses would be analyzed individually and their support in learning would be tweaked accordingly. All learning disabilities are teaching disabilities. Special education classifications are the way our system has evolved to deal with this issue which perpetuates the blame the victim mentality. Politics have ruined education! Perhaps being classified is leading to first class forms of delivery in educational services. What is going on in CSE meetings may be on the cutting edge of education. Also, I sense that the stigma attached to being classified is becoming less powerful as classification rates rise. This is especially true as more and more non- classified students are required to receive remediation services for failing state mandated high-stakes tests.

I certainly agree that schools are failing a disproportionate number of students, and that individualized instruction is the way to go, but also think IEPs are not very useful documents. They -could- be useful, but that at this point, they are typically of limited utility. I say that as a former special education teacher, administrator, building principal, and school/clinical psychologist.

I also agree with you that “teaching disabilities” are real, but must disagree with you about student disabilities, which are rendered nearly meaningless by our educational system. What we need are specific, descriptive diagnoses . . . -not- broad classifications such as LD, ED, MR, etc. We should be developing actual treatment plans that specify student assets as well as limitations. To do so would require far greater professionalism than we now have in our schools, more time and more money.
But, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

By the way, I disagree with the authors’ contention that schools cash in on students with disabilities. In fact, it typically costs school districts extra funds to provide special education programs. Districts -are- given financial incentives to provide services in least restrictive environments (LREs), however. In some cases, this deprives kids who need more restrictive settings, and just don’t get them.

I do believe the increase in the number of special ed students we have seen is due to changing perspectives about what “disability” is, and is not. As a politically liberal individual, I think we need to tighten up the reins.

I have a question that I hope someone can help me with.
How do you find out if your state or school district recieves money for every student diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder, whatever that may be?
I have searched all over the internet and can’t find the info
I had an Iep meeting for my 7 year old son, as I do every year to address sensory issues and speech and language delays.
There was the new administrator of the special ed dept in attendance. Never met him before but informed me within the first two minutes of our meeting that my son needs to be on medication.
Now, no one including all of the teachers in attendance had ever suspected and attention disorder.
This guy tells me that he observed my son for 15 minutes a week ago and he was fidgeting in his seat while doing his work.
Its been common knowledge that due to his sensory issues that he fidgets when the noise level gets too loud for him in the class.
Well, he tells me that if I refuse to label him adhd and medicate him then he will be out of the special ed system because he doesn’t consider speech/language and sensory processing disorder to be a diagnosis.
There have been major budget cuts to the special ed dept in my town this year, a half million dollars to be exact.
He has an aide that helps my son with one on one instruction since he has delalys due to his language issues and he threatened to take away the aid if I don’t agree to medicate him.
I will homeschool him before I agree to do that, but I wonder if its more about the money than anything, since there were 6 teachers and therapists that work with my son all week and none of them felt he has an attention problem, they felt his sensory issues just made it appear that way, yet this guy was relentless. I ended up walking out of the room.
If anyone can help me find out how to get information regarding any bounty Massachusetts schools may get it would be greatly appreciated.
I feel like I just need to know.
Thnaks Natalie

Natalie this issue you are having should be pushed to the superintendent of schools and you should make it known that the people that work with your child daily are in the majority and feel that this approach to medicate your son, and this new label is not necessary. As well this new administrator not seeing your childs language and speech barriers as a real issue for speacial attention is wrond and if it has to be public even at a board meeting then you do that. Districts don’t normally like extremely vocal parents and parents that will take a stand and fight to the death. most districts are not used to that. My son was told that he needed medication in about the 3rd grade, and I refused. He is now graduating from high school in 3 weeks. He has striggled with school, but not because of ADHD but because the unchallenging education has made him not appreciate school because he personally teaches himself more through books at the library, the internet, and Borders than the teachers do. Their expectations in public schools are rarely high and do not push our children to be great. I believe he will be successful in life because he is determined but not because of his public education. Continue to refuse medication and not be manipulated. The system does not own our children. They belong to us!

Although your article is interesting, it is also reflect the actuality of what is happening. Perhaps there are financial incentives, I can’t say, but from personal experiece I can say that schools do not want the label of “Special Needs” on a child. My son is severely autistic (can’t speak, has no receptive language, etc…)and it took three assessments for the school district to finally admit he was handicapped and provide him with special education. It was like pulling teeth. So if they had some financial incentive they sure didn’t want it.

I would just like to say that I have an autistic son. As I have read through the statements I was a little disheartened to hear some of the comments. Not all parents of disabled children are drug users/or missing fathers. Not all of them are on welfare seeking SSI. I am able to take care of my son with no state/federal funding. I have a great job, and do you think maybe that the parents and schools are trying to do what is best for the children that have special needs? I think it is not very rational to put all parents and all schools in the same catagory. I am not saying it does not happen, I am sure it does somewhere. Although if you put all parents and schools in a catagory like this it is very unjust. I want what is best for my son, he can not help he has needs above the typical child. Until someone has a child or a relative with a disable such as LD or Autism they will never know what those children, parents and caregivers do just to make sure that child is given a shot. My child will not have the same options that typical children will have. He will not be able to go to college, he is limited in his options for a future. I think it is time to pick on another population for awhile. How about paying for substance abuse services not just one time but several times for a substance user that has no insurance. Or paying for a killer to live in prison. Keep away from these kids that have no choice for how they were born and keep away from the parents and care givers that work hard getting them what they need. Remember what comes around goes around. You never know when you will be on the other side of the desk during an IEP meeting. I you never have to face that, and if you have bless you. You are really trying to take care of your child.

Oh my word- I am a school psychologist and laugh out loud to think that anyone ever would encourage us to identify kids. Not at all! I, too, and very upset by the increasing number of kids that are in programs. However, the laws are now written so that we basically have to justify why the kid was not identified. The bottom line, there are few cases anymore as laws keep changing due to pressure form parent advocacy groups. Complain about those who make the laws, but do not even suggest that there is some type of conspiracy at work by those of us in the trenches every day!!